Justice as Fairness: A Restatement

In addition to refraining from imposing one’s views upon others, the citizens of a just and democratic society should also affirm what they hold in common. Citizens must believe that justice as fairness is the right way to order their society and not simply resign themselves to it as the last available alternative. Since justice as fairness cannot supply their bedrock moral foundations, they must harbor reasonable moral doctrines, which are consonant with justice as fairness, producing an overlapping consensus that is far more durable than any attempted imposition, which requires the oppressive use of state power.

Justice as fairness would be political in a bad way if it tried to compromise between competing interests or conceptions of the good. It must instead establish clear principles of public reasoning, which may freely intersect with private moralities. It separates the public and private while permitting overlap where possible, rather than trying to collapse them into a super-doctrine capable of pleasing everyone.

One difficulty facing liberalism is that it permits people to believe different things and then forbids them from imposing their beliefs upon others. One way that liberalism resolves this contradiction is by espousing its own goods, while limiting their scope to political life. Thus, it affirms goods such as justice, liberty, reasonableness, and equality and is prepared to defend them. The other way is to show through history that societies can and do support overlapping doctrines and that this is a far superior model of social order than the imposition of a single doctrine. The remaining question is deciding when a comprehensive moral doctrine is reasonable and thus compatible with social order. A doctrine is reasonable when it lays out principles that its adherents will follow consistently, even when it violates their interests. Imposing views on another is irrational because it relies on the principle of the will of the stronger, and the strong would presumably not accept that principle if the situation were reversed and someone even stronger was imposing views upon them. A reasonable doctrine also recognizes that the whole point of their belief system is to enable a person to exercise their moral faculties and that forcing views on someone is a clear impediment to their moral development.

History shows that overlapping consensus is the only way to preserve a durable social order. Catholics and Protestants butchered each other for generations before they realized the impossibility of winning and accepted principles of toleration. The main cause of social instability is doctrinal strife, and justice as fairness is the best way to mitigate such conflicts. Rather than take these doctrines as the central fact of social life and try to work out some compromise between them, justice as fairness establishes a baseline of reasonableness and permits their social participation to the extent that they behave reasonably. Citizens need only espouse the content of rights and liberties that are not themselves subject to political discussion, a standard of reasoning for political debate, and a shared notion of cooperative citizenship that derives from those shared rights and participation in the political arena. This is not easy to achieve or sustain, but the futile and destructive doctrinal battles of the past are no alternative.

Rawls’s final argument is that over time, a society based on the principles of justice as fairness will build confidence in itself over time. A society that both encourages its members public participation and respects their private space appeals to the average person’s sense of reason and decency, especially one they have learned in their education as a liberal citizen. When people believe that the basic structure of their society is just, they will be all the more encouraged to contribute their own efforts to making improvements, especially because they have confidence in their fellow citizens to do the same. This makes it possible for a liberal society to achieve a degree of social harmony and prosperity that has so far been possible for the vast majority of humanity. So many societies have sought to impose one doctrine upon all their citizens, and many liberal states have permitted capitalism to create severe inequalities. A tolerant society mindful of inequality will strengthen the social bonds that are necessary for social cooperation, and the success of this project will build upon itself from one generation to the next.